Just Being A Good Neighbor
by cairistiona7
Summary: In which Steve Rogers battles monsters, screaming cyborgs, and a neighbor who thinks Steve's the garbage collector. #2 in the Apartment 4 series.


No warnings unless the mention of traumatic vestibulitis gives you sympathy dizziness.

All the canon folks belong to Marvel. They won't return my calls asking if I can keep them. Meh. Thank you, Imbecamiel and Nefhiriel, for the beta! *muwah*

-o0o-

The first time it happened, Steve didn't think much about it. A black garbage bag sitting by the stairs in the hallway just past the pretty blonde's door. (He still didn't know her name.) He gave it a light kick. It didn't make much noise. A clunk from a jar at the bottom, maybe some rustling of paper. He stared at it for a minute, then looked up and down the hall.

Nobody around to claim it.

With a shrug, he wiped his hands on his jeans (why, when he was about to undo a bag of _garbage_ , he couldn't quite say) and carefully untied the knot in the red drawstrings. He teased open the bag just enough to see that it was indeed someone's garbage, all the nasty stuff you can't recycle. He made a face at the odor and quickly retied the bag. He waved his hands to try to get rid of the smell. Maybe the pretty lady put it outside her door to take to the dumpster but got distracted and forgot. Couldn't leave it here to smell up the joint, so he'd just take it down for her. It's what neighbors did, after all, and he wanted to be a good neighbor.

" _Just bein' a good neighbor, Buck."_

 _Bucky snorted._

" _It's the gentlemanly thing to do."_

" _You get Miss Bradley's trash, but I don't ever see you pickin' up Mrs. Bedemeier's trash."_

" _She has Mr. Bedemeier for that. Can't show him up."_

" _Tell it to the Marines, pal. Mrs. Bedemeier ain't got a Maureen O'Sullivan smile like Miss Bradley's."_

" _Her smile's got nothing to do with it. Just being a good citizen."_

 _Another snort. "If you're such a good citizen, how come I always gotta nag you to take out_ our _trash? What, I ain't got as pretty a smile as Miss Bradley?"_

" _Shut up, Buck."_

Steve grinned. Bucky had known him too well. He picked up the bag and took it downstairs to the dumpster.

-o0o-

The next week, it happened again. Steve eyed the slumping bag tiredly. He'd just come off a mission… awful flying tentacled _things_ down in South America, some sicko scientific organization's experiment in cross-species genetics gone horrifically awry. He was sore and tired and limping. He'd twisted his knee to avoid a tentacle swipe, because as if tentacles weren't terrifying enough on their own, the things had been covered in _stingers_. Who even knew you could cross anacondas with wasps? And who the hell woke up one morning thinking, "Hey, here's an idea! Tentacles, but with _stingers_!"

He shuddered. More nightmare fodder. Just what he needed.

But in the meantime, a garbage bag. He should just leave it. Let her take it down herself this time.

He walked past it. Unlocked his door.

Then his shoulders slumped. He thumped his forehead against his door, right next to the number 4. He couldn't do it.

 _Rogers, you're an idiot._

Shut up, Buck.

He limped back down the hall, picked up the bag, and took the elevator to the basement, then out the back door into the alley. Into the dumpster it went.

Even taking the elevator, by the time he got back to his floor, his entire leg was screaming at him to just amputate it and be done with it. Super soldiers shouldn't have sore knees a day after a mission, but damn, he'd all but turned his foot backwards in his lunge to avoid certain death. He'd heard a pop in the joint as soon as he hit the ground. It had hurt so bad his stomach had turned and he'd seen spots. He hated it, but he'd had to stay on the ground while Tony and the Strike Team finished off all the monsters. By the time they finished he was back on his feet, though he'd had to use Rumlow as a crutch to hop back to the quinjet. It wasn't until he was on the ground in Washington that he could bear to put any weight on the leg. It was slowly improving with each passing hour, but it still hurt like the dickens.

The elevator door opened, and he once more limped past the pretty lady's door. He nearly jumped out of his skin when she opened it and nearly walked into him. She was talking on her phone, as usual, but she gave him a nod and a smile and a roll of her eyes and he, lame idiot that he was, just smiled at her as if he wasn't annoyed as hell that she was leaving her garbage in the hallway every week.

She didn't even glance down to see that it was gone.

He was too tired to confront her, and besides, she was on the phone, so he just kept going. He needed a shower. And an ice pack. A really big ice pack.

He blinked away a vision of endless rolling snow and ice and a sinking plane.

Okay, maybe not that big an ice pack.

-o0o-

Week three, bag three. But this time he walked past with barely a glance. The mission, fighting a cadre of AIM's mutant cyborgs with weird sonic powers bent on taking over Capetown, had been hard. He was tired to the bone, which said as much about the mission as anything. It took a lot to exhaust him. Besides sheer fatigue, he had a massive, dizzying headache, a broken wrist and a wrenched shoulder, all courtesy of a sonic wave slamming him through the side of a building. And just in case life wasn't challenging enough, the injuries to wrist and shoulder were on opposite sides. Because of course. But he was still in better shape than Hawkeye, who'd been knocked cold by the same screamer. Had Barton not already been deaf, he would have been after that. It's a wonder Steve hadn't been knocked out. Harder head, maybe. He had crawled back out of the rubble, somehow walloped the man with his shield despite the broken wrist (thank you, super serum, even if you didn't prevent actual broken bones), and the screaming stopped before it could damage his own hearing. But, boy, did his head feel funny. Like someone had taken a blender to his brain. He'd spent the entire flight back to the US wondering why the pilot insisted on so many barrel rolls.

(He _might_ have thrown up a few times, but Clint was out of it and no one else was there to bear witness except the pilot, who wisely kept his gaze forward despite the miserable noises Steve was making.)

Clint woke up somewhere over Florida and flat refused to be taken to DC to let the S.H.I.E.L.D. docs check him over, insisting instead they drop him off at LaGuardia where he could get a taxi to take him to his doctor in Bed-Stuy. "I have my own ear doctor, and he knows my ears better than anyone else," he'd signed angrily, and no one argued. So after a pit stop that Steve really wished they hadn't needed, at last the plane hover-landed on the Triskelion roof. He endured the doctor setting his wrist (simple fracture, give it two weeks), scanning his shoulder (strained rotator cuff, no tear, bruised scapula, give it a day), and checking his ears (traumatic vestibulitis, no known prognosis because who knows how quickly the serum heals inner ear damage). The doc had also assured Steve three times that, no, his skull wasn't really vibrating and his brain had not, in fact, turned into oatmeal, no matter how it felt. (Steve wasn't so sure.) One of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s drivers had thoughtfully given Steve a ride home since Steve was still staggering like a bum on Skid Row. His bike would just have to stay in the Triskelion parking garage until his ears settled down and his brain re-solidified.

Now that he was on his floor, aiming himself toward his door with care and concentration usually reserved for disarming bombs, he sure has hell didn't want to haul anything back down stairs. All he wanted was his bed. So yeah, screw the garbage bag, screw being a good neighbor, screw screaming cyborgs in South Africa.

Before he could let himself into his apartment, the elevator dinged behind him. "Steven!"

Steve winced. Mr. Kelly's voice was pitched at just the right frequency to send a railroad spike through his brain. But he dredged up a smile. "Mr. Kelly. Hi. How are you?"

"Better than you, from the looks of it. What gives with the arm?"

"Broke it on a mission," he said quietly, almost whispering, hoping the old man would take a hint and tone it down without his having to ask.

Sure enough, Mr. Kelly whispered back, "What, it didn't heal up in five minutes?"

"No, sir. Doc said about two weeks."

"And you call yourself a super soldier." But he winked as he said it, then came forward and picked up Steve's shield from where he'd leaned it against the wall while he unlocked his door. "Here. Let one broken down soldier help another."

Steve started to laugh but that made his head throb even more, so he left it at just a weak smile. He unlocked the door and stepped in after his usual pause to make sure the place was empty. Mr. Kelly followed and looked around. "I think this is the first time I've been in your apartment. Where do you keep the shield?"

He waved vaguely at the hallway. "Floor, against the wall."

"Smart. Easy to grab it up on your way out." He set it down, then had to make a quick grab as it started to roll away. "Oops."

Steve reached down and wedged it in the crack between floorboards.

"That did the trick." He eyed Steve. "But I saw you wince when you reached down. You got _two_ bad arms?"

"Kinda."

Mr. Kelly made a little huffing noise. "Sit."

Steve kicked a chair away from the table and sat. His head was starting to whirl. Or maybe it was the room. Or the city. Whatever. Things were spinning and he felt like he was back at Coney Island.

" _Buck, why'd you make me ride that thing? I'm gonna be… gonna be…"_

" _Aw, for cryin' out loud, punk, you almost hit my shoes! Fine, no more riding the Cyclone."_

"Whatsamatter with your other arm?"

Steve blinked away the memory of that horrible day at Coney Island. "Shoulder. Sprain, bruised. Nothing serious."

"How you gonna manage, two bad arms?"

When did this guy turn into Bucky the Mother Hen? "It's not so bad."

" _It's not so bad, Buck…"_

" _It is_ too _so bad, ya stupid little punk. Why'd you let 'em hit you like that? Shoulda ran when you had a chance."_

"Start running, you never stop," Steve mumbled.

"What's that?" Mr. Kelly asked.

"What? Oh… oh, nothing. My arm's fine, s'all I meant."

Mr. Kelly stuck his jaw out. "Then show me. Take off your jacket."

Steve swore he could hear Bucky snickering. "I'll be fine. 'sides, it's cold in here."

"You can't do it, can you. Stubborn Irishman." He reached out and gently tugged the collar open and the left sleeve down from Steve's shoulder. "Tell me if it hurts too much."

It _did_ hurt, and Steve might have hissed a little, but in a few seconds Mr. Kelly had the jacket off and draped on the back of one of the other chairs. Goosebumps rose on his arms. "Why'd you make me take it off?"

 _Nice whine you got going there, punk. Never remembered you being such a wimp._

Shut up, Buck.

"I'm doing this because you need some salve on that shoulder. Heal you right up."

"I don't need—"

Mr. Kelly raised an eyebrow at him. It was terrifying. Steve shut up.

"Now your shirt."

He looked down. Nothing special about it and the thought of raising either arm high enough to get it off exhausted him. "Scissors. Middle desk drawer."

"Are you sure? That's a nice shirt."

"'s just a t-shirt S.H.I.E.L.D. issued. Plenty more where it came from." He wanted to put his head down on the table and sleep.

He must have done that very thing, because when Mr. Kelly started cutting the back of his shirt, he had to lift his head up. "Sorry." He peeled the shirt off like a surgeon doffing his scrubs.

"Young man, you are dead on your feet, is what you are. Just give me two minutes and you can go collapse in bed and let that super-dooper blood of yours do whatever it does to make you recover so quick. From the bruising on your shoulder, if you were a normal man you'd be in the hospital. Now… I got two things I could put on it. Got some of that Capsazin liniment or some Vicks. Capsazin burns like a woman scorned, so I'm thinking Vicks."

"I don't think either one would do any good."

"Nonsense. Vicks is good for everything. Even super-dooper soldiers. You stay put while I go get my jar."

Before Steve could protest, he scurried out the door. Steve pulled himself to his feet, indulging in a long, drawn-out groan. Damn, he didn't remember being this miserable even after the battle of New York. He shuffled toward his bedroom, but before he made it, someone knocked on his door, which Mr. Kelly had left partially ajar in his haste to fetch his Vicks. "It's open," he called.

His neighbor—his pretty, blonde, garbage-bag-leaving neighbor—stuck her head in. "Oh!" she said and immediately turned away. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were…"

Steve glanced down and felt his face turn scarlet. He'd forgotten he was shirtless. "Oh, no, it's okay… really… I, um, was just…"

She pulled the door closed to maybe an inch. "I just wanted to ask… really, it's nothing, I'll come back later…"

"No, no. Go ahead, it's okay. Come on in. What did you need?"

"Well, it's just… my garbage is still sitting in the hallway and—"

Steve felt his jaw tighten. She had some nerve, actually coming to his door to ask why he hadn't taken it down when she had never even thanked him _once_ …

"—I see your bag isn't here, so I wondered if I missed getting mine out in time or if the janitor is just late this week? I guess your garbage got picked up?"

Steve blinked. "You… um. There's no janitor in the building. Well, except for the handyman that the landlord hires now and then. But he doesn't pick up trash. He just, you know, fixes stuff and, well, yeah."

 _Smooth, Rogers. You still got a way with the dames._

Shut up, Buck.

She pushed the door open all the way and stared at him in dismay. "But when I moved in, they said there was a janitor who'd pick up the trash each week if I left it out in the hallway. The first couple weeks I didn't bother because I was hauling empty boxes to the recycling bin just about every day, and then finally when I did start putting it out, it'd get picked up right away. But now you say there's no janitor?"

"Nope."

"Then who's been… oh no. No, no, no. Please don't tell me that Captain America has been picking up my nasty bag of trash every week."

Steve offered a sheepish grin. "It was no problem. Really."

 _The hell it was, Rogers!_

Shut up, Buck.

"Oh my god. You must think I'm the worst slob ever! I am so sorry."

"Sorry for what?" Mr. Kelly said as he came up behind her, a giant dark blue jar in hand.

"I was told there was garbage pick-up, and for the last month I've been putting out a bag of trash and—"

"We ain't got no garbage pick up here, Kate."

So that's her name.

"I know that now," Kate all but wailed.

"Who's been picking up your garbage?"

She wordlessly pointed at Steve.

Mr. Kelly cackled. "Oh, now that's rich! I didn't know that was one of the services he provided. How come you haven't come down to get mine? Ain't I pretty enough?" He batted his eyelashes.

The glare Steve gave him had been known to wither genius billionaire philanthropist playboys… actually, no, it never had any effect on Stark. But sometimes it worked on Barton. But not, apparently, Mr. Kelly, who just smirked. "Siddown. I got the Vicks."

Steve sat.

Kate came over. "Oh my, that shoulder looks bad. Vicks won't help it, I'm afraid. You need to get it checked."

"Already did. Just a bad bruise."

Mr. Kelly twisted off the lid. The smell of menthol filled the room. "And Vicks is good for bruises, anyone knows that."

Kate was now bent close, peering at Steve's eyes. Steve pulled his head back and frowned at her. Once again, his glare proved completely ineffective. He blamed his sonic-scream-scrambled brains.

"You have a concussion."

Steve shook his head and immediately regretted it. "Vesti… vestibule something or other," he muttered as he shut his eyes. Then he winced. Mr. Kelly was a little ham-fisted when it came to applying salve.

"You need to be in bed. Mr. Kelly, help me get him to bed."

"All right, all right. Keep your panties on… let me wipe off my hands."

Steve had to stifle a wave of hysterical giggles. In his wildest dreams, he'd never imagined a beautiful woman bedding him with the help of a skinny old geezer. Now there's a mood killer if there ever was one…

"You can't be too bad off if you're smiling," Kate said, and this time Steve _did_ giggle.

"Good grief, he's delirious," Mr. Kelly muttered.

Steve let them guide him to his bed. He more or less fell face-down onto his pillow. He was only vaguely aware of one of them gently dragging his legs up on the mattress and the other draping a blanket across him. "'zanks. Y're good neighb'rs," he mumbled, and his last thought before drifting away on a menthol-scented cloud was a prayer of thanks that he no longer had to worry about taking out anyone's garbage.

-fini-

A/N: My Clint is based mostly on Matt Fraction's comics. But since I like trying to merge comics & MCU, my headcanon is that Clint keeps his Bed-Stuy apartment as a front, further strengthening the illusion that he doesn't have a family and farm. And of course, at this point in Steve's MCU story, Steve has no clue that Clint has a wife and kids and big woodpile, nor does he know he will eventually rip a log in half with his bare hands.


End file.
